Friday 24 June 2022

Review by Jon Wilkins of "Paper Crusade" by Michelle Penn




The poems here echo Shakespeare's Tempest and are a response to The Tempest Replica, a dance performance choreographed by Crystal Pite.

How often do you
sit and read a poem
and are transported
to
a
Different world?
To storms and sea?
To wars and death?
And meet
absolute power, 
an evil colonialism, 
the wild exotic environment, 
magic, 
music and 
language?
Who is 
C?
The daughter?
The father?
Is the winged spirit truly
Ariel or
Another?
Who are the white suited
paper masked
army?
Who do they fight?
And why?
We follow the journey.
The words draw us in
each chosen for
their immaculate 
tone.
Willingly we
Go.
The words
different 
relevant 
unwavering in their 
Truth.
Drawn in
to a parallel 
world
of sprites and fancy
war and death.
A perfect mix
For any reader.
Of any age.
For any Age.


About the reviewer
Jon Wilkins is 66. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester University. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.


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